At what point of pain does it take to wake up the ignorant?

Expanse, I'll look it up. I try to put my energy into lobbying and protesting. Helps with the feelings of helplessness.

@rogueflyer it's really good. I'm hooked lol. Thank you for what you're doing, I kinda wish I could switch my area of expertise over to veterinary and go help. We have every right to be concerned.

@KittensandSage In my opinion the most effective way to help is to be active in making the public aware. Climate Change is incremental and some people are too busy with everyday survival to worry about something that doesn't effect them personally like having their home burned out or flood. Politicians notice public protests if they are large and overwhelming. We live in a time of political populism and one party seems willing to sell their character to be on trump's train. Be well Kitten

This is part of a long series of events. Flyer isn’t talking “cause & effect”, the massive fires across the world, especially encompassing a continent, are escalating changes in the planet’s capacity to balance carbon emissions. The planet can become anything, overtime, but if we want to inhabit it and maintain it’s incredible beauty, we need to change our consumption of resources, output, and lessen our impact on ecosystem. We have been changing the planet, but we are unchanged as a species. How can this not effect future generations? Coal is a resource that has proven to be inefficient. And we are screwing up the balance. For all future life. we humans and animals cannot evolve quickly enough, something must change. “There is no planet B”. That is the issue.

MADreefer, I don't think you read the article or are you a denier of human caused climate change?

@rogueflyer might be denier, or just having a fun Friday night.

1.) Climate Change Is Real

Obviously climate change is real, and obviously the industrial age sped up the process. From the models I have seen, we have passed the "point of no return". We will adapt or we will go extinct.

2.) Fossil Fuels

We have come far in creating new ways to harness energy. We are far from creating renewable energy that is able to sustain such large populations. The minerals required for the current renewable energy market still require fossil fuels to excavate and transport. The greenest energy is nuclear energy as it can be recycled and does not require nearly as many resources to create as alternative renewable energy options such as solar and wind.

3.) Wildfires/Natural Disasters

Still, this will not prevent wildfires. First, people are generally responsible for intentionally igniting the initial flame that causes a forest fire. Second, the dry climate is here to stay and will only get worse. It is inevitable. These conditions create the fires we are seeing in Australia, South America, and the United States.

Aside from wildfires, we have to find better measures to protect ourselves from natural disasters that are not initiated by people but the weather. Natural disasters are becoming more frequent. That is going to be an unchanging fact. We will need to find a better way to prepare and protect ourselves from the damage they can cause. Rebuilding entire cities every time a hurricane hits is not going to be feasible.

4.) The Fear Mongering

Politicians in all countries have used the changing climate to fear monger and gain power. They have even used it to brainwash people into taking a side whether climate change is real or man-made which is an absurd and unintelligent debate on its own.

Instead of making people fear hell and immorality, they make us fear the earth we live on and our "idiot neighbors". People are taught to see each other as the fools that won't listen. Instead of talking and having sound discussions, they shut down when they are certain they are correct because their "credible" leader told them so. This is just the game of creating scapegoats that politicians play to gain power. Thankfully there are people who do look toward our future and instead of fearmongering, they are working towards a solution.

5.) The Solution

We have kids designing machines that clean the oceans while the adults debate and fearmonger. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk have made the market easier, cheaper, and more efficient to access through the means of the internet. We can now send money using Paypal (and now alternative sites) to any country without a second thought. We are in our infancy when it comes to the technology we are innovating. If we can go from rotary phones to wireless phones, from simple wireless phones to smart-phones all in less than half a century, imagine how far we go in the next 50 years. We even sent a man to the moon (1969) before we ever had GPS satellites (1979).

6.) The Road Block

I believe there is an entirely different argument to be had about the power we give our leaders. We have allowed our leaders to fine and criminalize hard-working people to the point they are one bad day away from being impoverished. They cannot even set their eyes on the prize to be a part of the greater cause for progress because they are held down.

We cannot allow them to distract us with fearmongering. It is allowing the market to be stifled as people like Elong Musk and tiny home builders fight laws and regulations that prevent their innovation. We could solve homelessness and world hunger but many laws and regulations prevent it. We require a free and open market to allow competition among entrepreneurs so that we can create the required innovative solutions.

7.) Planet B = Planet A & B

What if there is a planet B? If there is, we will be able to keep planet A [Earth]. In order to live on planet B, we will need to learn how to terraform. If we can terraform an alien planet, we can terraform earth. That is the most exciting part of all of this. We will get there. However, we will not get there as soon as you wish if we keep pushing the fearmongers' narrative that is only providing more power to people that are stifling innovation.

so the concept of overloading the climate with more carbon is lost on you? How leaving carbon in the earth, how recapturing carbon and containing it via agricultural practices, stopping oil production and methane release are the best ways we have to avoid additional climate pressure?

Or how about the fact that Australia's politicians have DIRECTLY contributed to this disaster of more than half a billion ( BILLION) deaths of animals and people and homes and the final stroke against several endangered species as well, by allowing fracking companies to dam up entire rivers across the country (which fed directly into these parched areas) for the fracking processes. Which as you may or may not understand, is again releasing carbon from the planet into the air. All of which adds to global dimming as well. *probably another term you need to look up.

No? Just sitting around happily ignorant and throwing out insults to those dying from the added pollution and the tons and tons of carbon released into the atmosphere by these fires?

Either educate yourself or try to understand that your comments are excruciatingly ill informed and painful for those in immediate and direct peril.

And look up pyrocumulus clouds while you are at it. Maybe you will start to understand the panic and terror our fellow brothers and sister in the path of these firestorms are going through and change your tone.

@gosherd

The death of the animals is completely the fault of arsonists.

Australians have given their government more power consistently to the point that there is nothing you or anyone can do to keep natural springs flowing. Fracking itself does not release carbon into the air. The environmental effects are limited to gases released into the natural water supply. It is an entirely separate issue and a reason why the dams are created.

Here you are telling me to educate myself and yet you have already failed to illuminate the real problem fracking causes. Fracking was necessary for Australia to gain wealth in the global economy as they have limited all other means. I do not support fracking as a means to obtain oil in heavily populated habitats. I especially do not support giving power to any government; providing an incentive for corruption in the oil industry being the number one reason.

Those clouds also help dampen conditions and reduce the spread of wildfires when they produce heavy rainfall. Panic never solved a problem and literally distracts people from solutions.

We have a lot in common, Australia and the US. We both have populist leaders that put telling the public what they want to hear rather than to lead with reason. I wish you the best!

Ooops! Sorry thought you were an Aussy.

@rogueflyer “Sorry thought you were an Aussy” -- I’d looked into it.. But the entry requirements appeared daunting and the ‘conservative’ government looked worse...

When the fires are done I doubt there will be many kangaroos left!

@Geoffrey51 You guys ought to enlist the kangaroos in your fire fighting efforts. They can box the flames out. And I heard they are fire retardant.

Estimated that a half billion wildlife have died. More to die due to starvation because of loss of vegetation. Many species may be extinct.